Will Apple Use ARM Chips in Next Year’s Laptops and Desktops?

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According to a fairly reliable but unnamed source, Apple will shift from the Intel’s x86 Core chips to the ARM architecture in its line of MacBook laptops. The exact timeline for the change is not known, but it could be as soon as next year. If this rumor is true, it is likely that Apple’s desktop computers, for the sake of compatibility, will also eschew Intel x86 in favor of ARM.

While it would be stupid to take any non-Jobsian Apple-related uttering as truth, there is more than enough substantiating proof for this little piece of news to stand on its own two feet. Apple has enjoyed immense success with its iOS devices — and they’re all powered by ARM chips. If Apple moved its laptops to the ARM architecture, they would then be natively compatible with hundreds of thousands of iPhone and iPad apps. ARM uses less power and physical space than its x86 CISC counterparts, too — and in the world of mobile computing, that’s everything.

The only real problem with moving to ARM is compatibility with existing Mac OS X software. Enterprise-level tools like Adobe Photoshop and Logic Pro would need to be rewritten — and considering Apple only just moved to the x86 architecture, that might be asking a lot of software developers. Likewise, Mac OS X itself would have to be ported to ARM — but having said that, with the release of ARM laptops and desktops, we could finally the replacement of OS X with an ARM-compatible OS 11. More importantly, though, Apple already has an ARM-compatible operating system in the shape of iOS, which itself is based on OS X. It’s possible that future iterations of the MacBook won’t run OS X or OS 11 at all — rather, they might run iOS 6 or 7 instead.

There are also concerns about ARM’s raw performance. As it stands, Intel produces the fastest CPUs on the market — and with its recent announcement of a 22nm 3D Tri-Gate process, its supremacy isn’t going anywhere. ARM is certainly coming along nicely, but if you put today’s top-of-the-line ARM chip in a MacBook Pro, it would crawl like a 10-year-old spyware-ridden Windows Me machine. Quad-core 64-bit ARM chips from Nvidia are expected in the next year or two, though, and while they certainly won’t be as fast as Intel’s offerings, they might be fast enough. Raw performance certainly isn’t the number one priority with mobile computing, after all.

Another strong possibility is that Apple will be moving away from x86, but not from Intel. Intel is more than capable of fabricating excellent ARM chips — and given its lackluster success with the Atom architecture in the mobile computing arena, it might be very keen to produce millions of ARM chips for Apple. It’s also worth remembering that Apple recently sued Samsung for copying the iPhone and iPad — and Samsung is the sole producer of the A4 and A5 CPUs found in every recent iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Their relationship is undoubtedly under stress, and Apple is certainly looking at other possible silicon foundries to take over its chip production.

Finally — and this is by far the biggest indicator that Apple will move its laptops and desktops to ARM — Microsoft has announced that the next version of Windows will be compatible with the ARM architecture and x86/x86-64. Windows 8 will be able to run on tablets, smartphones, netbooks, laptops, and desktop machines — and in theory, a single app written for a Windows 8 tablet would be compatible with a Windows 8 desktop PC. Microsoft might not have the body of apps that iOS has, but it does have oodles of cash and 90% of the laptop and desktop market. Irrespective of CPU architecture, wherever Windows goes, software will follow.

ARM-based laptops and desktops are coming. Apple has asserted its complete dominance in the tablet arena, but with Microsoft now fully behind Windows ARM, it now needs to move fast to secure its other divisions from the great usurper.